


A Storm Inside and Out

by fuwutaba



Category: Ensemble Stars! (Video Game)
Genre: Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-22
Updated: 2017-05-22
Packaged: 2018-11-03 14:18:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,395
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10968963
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fuwutaba/pseuds/fuwutaba
Summary: Subaru catches Hajime on clean-up duty after school and offers his help, then a storm passes over the academy.





	A Storm Inside and Out

“Ahh, I wish I could leave already, it’s so nice out today!” Subaru sighed, collecting cleaning supplies from the maintenance room. It was a pleasant spring day at Yumenosaki Academy, and the young boy was tasked with cleaning duty for that afternoon. On his way back to the classroom, he spotted his underclassmen, Hajime Shino, also carrying cleaning supplies.

“Hey, Shinonon~” he called. “You have cleaning duty too?”

“Ah, Akehoshi-senpai!” the 1st year replied. “Actually, I don’t have it today, but Tomoya has theater club rehearsal, so I offered to take his duty so that he could have more time to prepare.”

“That’s just like Shinonon, thoughtful as always!” Subaru smiled warmly at his junior.

“Oh, I was just repaying Tomoya for a favor he did me last… Uwahh!” Hajime got slightly flustered, and one of the bundle of supplies he was trying to carry slipped out of his arms.

“Ah, got it~” Subaru swooped in to catch the cleaning liquid before it could spill onto the ground. “You’re carrying so many at once, why don’t I help?”

“Oh no, don’t you have clean up duty as well?” Shinonon shied away from Subaru’s eager gaze. “I wouldn’t want to bother Akehoshi-senpai with my own obligation, I should be able to handle it by myself…”

“You’re always so helpful to everyone, you should rely on others more!” Subaru patted him on the shoulder. “Besides, you could never be a bother to me, I’d like you to rely on me actually~”

“Ah, you’re right, Akehoshi-senpai.” Hajime nodded. “Nii-chan also scolds me about that from time to time.”

The two collected themselves and began to walk back to the first year’s classroom, and Subaru carried an abundance of supplies with apparent ease. Hajime couldn’t help but notice how strong Subaru’s arms looked upon holding so many things. “I would have to take 2 or 3 trips to carry the same amount as he does in this 1 trip…” Hajime’s mind wandered as they walked together in contented silence. “Not just his arms, his whole body looks to be in top condition from idol activities as well as basketball club… I wonder if he eats properly along with his great amount of daily exercise… or what his favorite foods are…”

“Whatcha thinkin’ about Shinonon? You look like you’re focusing a lot, should I help you carry those chairs too?”

“Ah, n-no thank you!” Hajime snapped out of his thoughts, now attempting to mask his flustered state. “I was just thinking of… what I’m going to cook for my little siblings for dinner tonight!”

“Oh, your siblings!” Subaru perked up. “You have a little brother and sister, right?”

“Yes!” Hajime smiled and nodded. “I have a picture of us together in my bag, I could show you when we put our stuff down?”

“Yeah! I bet they look like you too, huh?” Subaru opened the classroom door, setting down the supplies by where Hajime had put his things down.

“Mhm!“ Hajime went to pull the photo out of his bag. “This is from when we visited our relatives in Hokkaido—”

“You three do look so alike!” Subaru looked at the photo with surprise. “And hey, there’s even a snowman… how did you get him to have blue hair too?”

“Oh, my siblings put a blue blanket on the snowman’s head so that his hair color would match ours.” Hajime softly giggled. “They like to play around like that.”

“How adorable!” Subaru laughed along with his underclassmen. “Being cute runs in Shinonon’s family, for sure~”

Hajime slightly flushed at his senior’s comment. “I’m glad that you think so, Akehoshi-senpai.” he smiled proudly. “I do love them both so much, and I do my best to take care of them as a big brother.”

“I bet.” Subaru gazed out of the classroom window. “I always wonder what it would be like to have a sibling, or even an amazing one like Shinonon~”

“I think that anyone would be happy to have someone like Akehoshi-senpai as their sibling!” Hajime chimed. He unfastened his bag to put away the family photo, but as he was doing so, a picture he had of Subaru performing as an idol slipped out of his bag and fell onto the ground face-down.

“Oh, is this another photo of you guys?” Subaru went to pick up the fallen photo.

“Ah, t-that’s just my report card from this semester!” Hajime’s reflexes had acted before his thoughts, and he had ended up grabbing Subaru’s arm rather tightly when he went to stop him.

“Oh, did Shinonon do badly?” Subaru laughed nervously, not used to Hajime’s touch or him being forceful at all.

“Aha, y-yeah, I didn’t give it my all in dance lessons.” Hajime smiled up at Subaru, quickly releasing his grasp. “I need to become stronger, that’s all.” He sighed, hastily stuffing the picture of Subaru back into his bag so that his senior couldn’t get a glimpse at its true contents.

“Oh, is that it?” Subaru put a hand on his chin. “Well, I think your dance moves look awesome in Ra*bits lives, if you’re not sure about that! And I bet you got A’s in singing lessons, because Shinonon has the most beautiful voice I’ve heard~”

“Akehoshi-senpai is too kind to me…” Hajime’s cheeks lightly tinted, and he avoided Subaru’s gaze once again that afternoon. He glanced near the window, where they put down the cleaning supplies.

“We should get to cleaning duty, huh?” Subaru suggested, noting Hajime’s averted gaze. He walked over to the supplies, Hajime shortly following behind him.

“Ok, I can start with the blackboard, if you want to start with the broom?”

“Yeah!” Subaru nodded enthusiastically. “I’ll stack the chairs while I’m at it. Two hands are always better than one~”

The students began cleaning the classroom, and made good work in a short time. As Subaru finished stacking chairs and sweeping, he went to the window to put back the broom.

“What’s this?” Subaru stopped and opened the window, then closed it rapidly. “It feels like it’s gonna thunderstorm? This wasn’t in the forecast…”

“Oh?” Hajime brought the blackboard erasers back to the supply cart and looked out the window along with Subaru. As he saw the sky darkening and heard thunder in the distance, his eyes widened.

“Shinonon, what’s wrong?” Subaru noticed his underclassmen’s hands starting to tremble.

“It’s just something dumb…” Hajime looked down and away, folding his hands behind his back.

Subaru turned to face Hajime again with a concerned expression. “Oh no, I promise it’s not stupid, Shinonon! You could tell me anything, OK?”

Hajime hesitantly faced him again. “Ok, well…” distant thunder cracked, and he looked more distraught as he began to explain, fiddling with his shirtsleeves. “It’s just that… I’m sorta afraid of it… thunder and lightning…”

Subaru shook his head, showing his underclassmen a reassuring smile. “That’s not dumb at all, Shinonon! I think it’s actually a common fear.” Subaru put a hand on Hajime’s shoulder, beckoning him with his other hand. “C’mon, let’s sit down, away from the window~”

Hajime followed Subaru to the corner of the room, taking acute notice of lightning flashing from the window, and doing his best not to let his nervous energy take control.

“Here, there’s a long pillow from the piano chair we can use!” Subaru set down the pillow in the corner, patting it for Hajime to sit down with him.

“Now we can’t see the storm, so it’s better~” Subaru turned to Hajime. “I’m actually kinda troubled too because I forgot my umbrella!” he laughed sheepishly.

Hajime slightly perked up. “Oh, i-is that so, Akehoshi-senpai? Y-You can borrow mi—“ the boy was interrupted mid-sentence by a deafening crack of thunder that hit ground much closer to the academy, causing the ground to shake.

“Ahh!” Hajime yelped, squeezing his eyes shut and tightly clutching the tie on his school shirt with both hands.

“Shinonon…” Subaru’s smile vanished as he saw his junior quivering in fear. His mind desperately searched for the best thing to do. After a few seconds, he gently reached his arms around Hajime to bring him closer to his chest.

Hajime jumped a little at Subaru’s touch, but shortly realized what he was trying to do, so he replied to Subaru’s caring gesture by leaning more into him. Hajime felt helpless in the face of his fear; the last thing he wanted to do was to look weaker then he already was in front of the senior he so admired. But Hajime felt paralyzed in the moment, and like the only thing he felt his body could do was tightly hold onto Subaru.

On top of his anxiety about the storm, Hajime became flustered once he thought of the reality of his situation. It was after school hours, he was in a dark classroom, and he was not just alone with a second year, but embracing him… thinking about the possibility of someone coming by to check the room and seeing them made Hajime feel suffocated. He thought, if he just had more strength to carry his supplies, and he didn’t have a dumb fear of storms, then he wouldn’t have caused any trouble for Subaru in the first place, the situation all his fault. “Why am I thinking this…?” Hajime questioned himself, and tried to stop his shaking from getting worse. He could feel tears stinging at his eyes and his face felt too hot.

Suddenly, Hajime felt Subaru’s hand on the back of his head, and gentle but strong fingers running through his hair. His eyes started to water even more, causing tears to run down Subaru’s summer uniform t-shirt, like the rain ran down the window.

“Shinonon...” Subaru spoke in a soft but firm voice, continuing to stroke his hair. “Did you know that a long time ago, my dad went to Yumenosaki?” He closed his eyes. “My dad wasn’t around the house a lot, so I don’t remember him well, but I admired him so much… He’s what inspired me to come to this academy, to become a shining idol that spreads smiles to everyone… I always hear from teachers that he was one of the best idols to ever come from Yumenosaki.” He took a deep breath. “When I was little, he passed away from overwork… I remember being so afraid, I didn’t know what to do, and my mom and I spent a lot of time like how we are right now… From early on I learned that even the strongest people are weak sometimes.” Subaru moved his hands from Hajime’s hair to his upper back. “You might think you’re weak, Shinonon, but I think you’re strong… and you might think I’m strong, but I feel weak and down sometimes… what matters most is having loved ones who support you no matter what.”

By the time Subaru finished talking, Hajime had stopped shaking as well as crying. His eyes were closed along with Subaru’s, and the two of them sat close together in the corner of the classroom, enduring the storm.

Subaru could feel the steady rise and fall of Hajime’s chest against his own. Lightning flashed, and Subaru opened his eyes ever so slightly to look down at Hajime. His soft blue hair reminded him of the color of the sky earlier today, before it turned dark and gray because of the passing storm. “Shinonon looks even more gentle than usual…” he thought to himself, and reached his arms around Hajime to hold him just a little tighter.

Now that his anxiety had diminished, Hajime started to take more notice of Subaru. Everything about him was making Hajime feel more at ease; the heat radiating from him, the soft feeling of his uniform, the smell of his detergent. “Does Subaru do his own laundry? Since I do laundry so often at home and for my part-time job, I know that his uniform has softener and spring flower scent detergent, and… is that men’s cologne?” Hajime’s mind wandered.

After a half hour or so, the storm began to pass, and when light shone through the classroom window, Subaru and Hajime opened their eyes to look at each other. Even though they were both somewhat relieved, they were both so comfortable that they almost didn’t want to leave the moment.

“That was quite the storm, huh!” Subaru broke the silence, sitting across from Hajime now and smiling.

“Mhm, it sure was...” Hajime smoothed his hair, attempting to regaining his composure.

“C’mon, let’s look outside~” Subaru grabbed Hajime’s hand to stand up with him, and they scurried together to the window.

Hajime gasped. “A… rainbow is over there above the trees, look Akehoshi-senpai!” he nudged Subaru’s shoulder, a smile quickly spreading over his face. “It’s so beautiful…”

“Mm, I see it! It really is…” Subaru’s looked back at Hajime. “Just like Shinonon’s smile~”

Hajime’s looked at Subaru for a bit longer until his cheeks went red. He turned back to the window and smiled bashfully, his hands on the windowsill.

“They say that a pot of gold is at the end of a rainbow, but please don’t go running outside to search for it, Akehoshi-senpai.” Hajime giggled.

“Aw, but I really want to, now that you mentioned it!” Subaru pouted. “Searching to find all that shiny gold would be an adventure~”

Instead of responding, Hajime gasped again, grabbing Subaru’s attention. “Oh no, I just remembered that I was supposed to go to the supermarket after school today for a sale!” He ran back to the corner where they were sitting and hastily grabbed his bag.

“Oh, really? I have to go to the store too!” Subaru was actually planning on playing games with Makoto after school today, but he’d deal with him later. He didn’t want his time with Hajime to end that quickly. “To get some popsicles, since the weather’s heating up and all~”

“Let’s go, hurry Akehoshi-senpai, before the store closes!” Hajime ran back to the window to grab Subaru’s hand, and they ran out of the classroom and down the empty hallway together. “So we can get Akehoshi-senpai’s popsicles... and vegetables for my dinner!”

As the two students ran out of the academy into the late spring sunlight, both of them held the day’s events close to their heart, and stronger feelings for each other than before.

**Author's Note:**

> Hello and thank you so much for reading! This is my first fic on ao3 and I'm excited to add to the few fics in the subahaji tag bc I love them so much. I used canon things about Subaru and Hajime as a sort of outline in writing this. For Subaru, I included how his father died and how he was inspired by him to enter yumenosaki, how he’s touchy-feely, and how he loves shiny things. As for Hajime, I included how he does laundry jobs, how he is easily frightened and has anxiety, how he worries about supermarket sales, his siblings, how he’s prone to daydreaming, and how he has a picture of Subaru (his “admired person” 3*) :~)


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